“Thank you for everything, Z. I’ll tell Julie about this.”
“No need. I’ll tell her myself after I kill all these assholes and catch up.”
I could tell there was more he wanted to say about me volunteering to die here, but there wasn’t a lot of time to spare for emotional partings. VanZant raised his voice. “All right! We’ve come too damned far together to give up now. I can’t carry any of you bastards, but by God you know I’ll try! So if you give up, you’re killing me too. You’re killing all of us! So quit moping and start moving!”
If any of them had been on their own, they probably would have curled up and surrendered, but a Hunter will push through anything for his team. Determination registered on their emaciated faces. Even stopping for that short of a time had given them a chance to catch their breath and refocus. They would carry on.
As they began moving down the ridgeline, I started walking in the direction of the horn, looking for a good spot to set up an ambush. The survivors didn’t even realize they’d lost me. Knowing VanZant, he would probably use my covering for them as a motivator when they next had to stop and catch their breath. He’s buying us time, so let’s not waste it. That sort of thing. It’s what I would have done.
This ridgeline had a nice field of view. We had just passed a rock pile with scraggly bushes growing from the cracks. I headed straight for that spot. It would provide a little bit of extra elevation, excellent concealment, and the terrain would slow down any Fey who tried to climb up it to stab me. Assuming they had senses similar to a human, I could probably get off a bunch of shots before they spotted me. The trees immediately below that position were relatively sparse, so my attackers wouldn’t have much cover. I picked a good boulder to die on and began setting up shop.
I’ll be honest. Even though the odds sucked, it felt good to stop running. My feet hurt and I was sick of being chased. I wanted to show these Fey who the real Hunter was.
I had long since gotten rid of every bit of excess weight. After I’d handed out my gear to the survivors, I’d ditched my pack. However, I’d never left behind a single round of ammunition. Minus what I’d shot at the Asakku and at the bone fort, I still had most of my full load out. Odds were they’d overwhelm me before I could burn through all of it, but I’d try. After that, I had my kukri, which was a big, friggin’ scary knife, but not that useful against things wearing suits of armor and carrying swords longer than my legs. I would have loved access to heavier weapons, but emphasis there is on the word heavy, and after hiking up and down this stupid dimension for weeks, even this much stuff had kicked my butt.
I pulled out a couple of mags and laid them on the stone beside me, that way I wouldn’t have to wrestle my reloads out of a pouch while lying on them. Flipping open Cazador’s bipod, I went prone, got as comfortable as possible, and started estimating the ranges to various terrain features. Assuming the Fey would be directly following our trail, my first clear glimpse of them would be approximately nine hundred yards away.
That was something that my wife would have been able to pull off in her sleep, but it would be a challenging shot for me. I had memorized the ballistic tables Milo had given me for this load. At this range I would be lobbing bullets in with a trajectory like a rainbow. It was safe to assume the Wild Hunt would close fast, so I’d have to remember to keep adjusting for range. At least there was no wind to compensate for, just the ever present drizzle. But at this distance, even the cumulative effect of striking rain drops could alter a bullet’s trajectory.
Lightning burned across the sky. Thunder rocked the mountain.
It was strange, but I was too weary to get freaked out about what I was about to do. In the back of my mind I was thinking about my family, and my child who I would never meet, but the front of my mind was focused entirely on the here and now. My only purpose in life now was to bleed these Fey as much as possible. There was no use getting worked up, that would only increase my heart rate, which would make me shake, which would make me less accurate, which would spare more Fey. If I made the cost of this hunt too high, they would have no choice but to back off, and my guys could still escape.
But no matter what, nobody was coming to save me.
So be it.
I saw the first flicker of movement, something black rushing through the green. Sure enough, they were on the exact same trail we had used. It would have been nice to leave some Claymore mines behind us, but I might as well wish for a pony while I was at it. I got my head down and peered through the scope. With the US Optics magnification turned all the way up, I could see that it was one of the Fey’s hound creatures, misshapen head swinging back and forth as it followed our muddy footsteps. It had to be two hundred pounds of muscle, with protruding jaws that could bite right through a man’s leg.
The horn blew again, much closer now. I could almost picture one of the Fey lifting some weird curling ram’s horn to his ugly lips. They knew we were close and were trying to scare us. Banished to this awful land, the thrill of the hunt was the only thing that kept these creatures entertained.
At the call of the horn, the hound thing stopped, waiting obediently.
Safety off. Range estimated. Scope dialed in. I put the reticle on the target. The dumb beast was standing there, looking eagerly back toward its masters, forked tongue lolling out of its open mouth. Inhale. My finger moved to the trigger. Exhale. I squeezed on the respiratory pause.
Cazador barely moved, so I never lost sight of my target. It took about a third of a second for the bullet to get there. Mud flew up from an obvious hit just low and to the left of the creature’s paws. My estimation had been slightly off. Inhale. I adjusted my aim using the scope’s Horus grid. Exhale.
The dog thing was still staring, confused, at the odd new hole in the mud when my second bullet nailed it in the ribs. Startled, it leapt back, landed, spun, and managed to run a few feet before falling over. I must have pierced something vital. I watched it twitch through the scope.
Then I could feel the thunder. Only this wasn’t from the clouds, it was from hundreds of powerful hooves slamming into the ground.
Here we go.
The Wild Hunt burst through the trees, terrifying and ferocious. They were approaching the dead hound. I picked one of the creatures in front. Inhale. They were moving with shocking speed, but directly toward me at that point of the trail, so no need to lead them. Plus their steeds were gigantic targets. Exhale. Black banners were whipping in my scope. Squeeze.
Cazador gently thumped my shoulder. A massive horselike beast twisted to the side as the bullet struck. Its front legs collapsed. Its head hit the ground, and momentum took it end over end, crashing violently through the brush with the Fey still on its back.
I still didn’t know what my bullets would do to a Fey knight’s armor, but they worked fine on their pets and livestock.
Most of the Wild Hunt was still charging forward, though some had seen the crash or the dead hound, realized something was wrong, and were pulling back on their reins. Good. Slow moving targets were easier to hit than fast bouncing ones. I picked another knight and fired. I must have hit the mount, because it reared back on its hind legs, front limbs kicking. The knight on its back was thrown from the saddle.
More and more black shapes were appearing, roaring down the trail. They were so bunched up that it would be hard to miss. I kept firing so fast it became a blur. Target. Fire. Target. Fire. Only their animals were incredibly tough. Some I was certain I hit, but they didn’t show much reaction at all. I could still put bullet holes in them, try to hit something vital, and just pray that Fey critters had blood pressure like ours did.
One of the knights who had been launched from the saddle stood up, right in the open. He seemed stunned. I shot him dead center, so clean that I actually saw a strange green flash as the bullet impacted his breast plate. The knight staggered back a couple of steps, but didn’t fall. It hadn’t penetrated. Their armor was enchanted after all.
Not good.
A .308 bullet loses a ton of velocity across that distance, so hopefully I would have more luck as they got closer. But until then I went back to wounding their unarmored steeds. If enough Fey were walking, they’d have to give up on catching my friends. Cazador’s bolt locked back empty. I leaned it to the side, ejected the mag, shoved in another, slapped the release, and dropped the bolt. I got back to shooting as soon as the bipod was flat on the stone. Hot brass went rolling over the side of the boulder.
Some of the Fey were milling around, confused, as their horse things got shot out from under them, but others were still charging past them down the trail, heading my way. They were nearing the white rock I had estimated at seven hundred. Damn they’re fast. Riding hard, they were bouncing erratically over the uneven terrain, and since they were no longer heading straight at me, I had to lead my targets. If I fired directly at them by the time the bullet got there they would already be gone. So I needed to shoot ahead of them for bullet and target to intersect. Travel time of the bullet and travel time of the animal made for a much more difficult shot.
There was another green flash as I hit a Fey’s leg armor, but he jerked back on the reins so hard it caused his mount to skid sideways into another creature. Both of them crashed into the mud, limbs flailing and banners snapping.
I made it through a second twenty round magazine, picking targets and firing as fast as I could. The suppressor was getting hot enough to boil the collected rain drops off of it. There were so many Fey they must have cleared out the whole fort. Riders nearing five hundred. Adjust. I started burning through my third twenty round mag, and the Fey still didn’t know where their attacker was.
But then my scope landed on one Fey in particular. This one was huge. He appeared to have a ghostly green halo. His black helmet was decorated with flared bat wings and he was on a horse thing the size of a rhinoceros. Big flags—his flags—hung from spear shafts jutting from both sides of his beast’s saddle. This was clearly their leader, a being of pure terror, but worst of all, somehow he was staring right at me.
I aimed just ahead of his galloping steed’s head as he pointed toward me with one gauntlet. I pulled the trigger. The world exploded around me.
There was a blinding blue flash as I was hurled violently down the rock pile. I landed on my back. I lay there in pain as rock and dirt rained down around me.
That fucker is using magic. He was some kind of Fey Huntsman, of course he was using magic. Cheating son of a bitch.
It took a few seconds before I could see again. The boulder I’d been lying on had been cracked in half. I reflexively struggled back to my feet before I realized my sleeve was on fire. I hastily beat it out. Good thing my clothes were perpetually soaked here. Cazador had landed a few feet away. Luckily the blast hadn’t knocked the glass out of the optic, so I scooped it up and went back to the fight.
I stumbled around the rock pile as the rain beat down the dust. The Wild Hunt was still charging up the ridge. It was going to take more that some boulder splitting bolts to make me quit. Luckily, I had managed to brain their leader’s mount, because it had crashed. I couldn’t see the Huntsman behind its bulk, but hopefully he’d broken his neck on landing.
They were charging up the ridge now. Adjust to three hundred. Now this was a range that I was actually good at. I cozied up to another rock, set Cazador’s bipod down, and picked my next target.
Since they were climbing at a steep angle, this time when I shot a horse thing through its neck, it made for a spectacular tumble back down the hill, right into the legs of another creature. One knight bounced off a rock so hard that it raised green sparks. I picked the next closest Fey and started working my way back down the line. Target. Fire. Target. Fire. They were close enough now that I could hear the screams of their wounded steeds.
I was reloading when the next spell hit. My only warning was when the rocks I was hiding behind began to vibrate ominously. My first thought was earthquake except then the whole world rushed up to smack me in the face. I dove to the side as the ground beneath me erupted upwards, dodging most of it. The majority of what hit me was soft wet dirt, but there were enough hard bits in there to really hurt.
Only this time the dust didn’t settle. It continued to whip and circle around me. Grit stung my eyes. Rocks cut my skin. The Huntsman was blinding me so his warriors could get closer. I closed my eyes tight and headed for the edge of the storm. Since I couldn’t shoot at anything for a moment, I adjusted my range to too close for comfort cranked the magnification on my scope all the way down so I could engage them faster.
Stumbling out of that cloud, bleeding, coughing, half blind, I didn’t bother taking a rest to shoot. They’d just blow it up with magic. The Wild Hunt was right below me, crashing through the brush. I shot at everything that moved. Green sparks flew whenever one of my bullets hit their strange armor. They were unbelievably quick and closing fast. Every fiber of my being was screaming for me to run, but if I turned and fled they’d just cut me down. So I stood my ground and kept shooting, wounding animals and sending them tumbling down the rocks.
The next spell was in the form of a gust of wind. It came screaming out of nowhere. The rain drops went horizontal right before the air hit me like a truck. It flung me against a tree. Which hurt, but worse, it had thrown off my aim and I’d wasted a bullet. I tried to push my way free, but the wind kept howling, shoving me back. I could feel it tearing at my skin. It was like sticking your head out the window of an airplane.
The magical wind died off and I could move again. That was fire, earth, air, so if the pattern held the Huntsman would probably hit me with a tsunami next.
Only he wouldn’t need to. The Fey were on top of the ridge with me.
An arrow embedded itself in the tree by my head. Then I had to duck as a Fey rode by, swinging an axe. It caught nothing but bark. I used the side sights as he went past, shooting his horse thing in the ass several times. It crashed haphazardly through the forest.
They were trying to ride me down. It was pure chaos as I was engulfed in a black armored wave. A sword swung, leaving a shallow cut across my shoulder. Then the mount clipped me, hurling me into the dirt.
I looked up, just as another beast was going to ride me down. I barely had time to raise my rifle, firing wildly. Green blood burst from the creature’s snout as it reared back. Magic sparks flew as the Fey knight was struck. The hooves descended.
By a miracle it didn’t stomp me to death. It bruised my shoulder, cut a gash on my leg, but I scrambled out from beneath it as it kicked and thrashed. The rider was trying to control it, reins in one hand, spiked mace in the other. His visor turned toward me as the mace descended.
I shoved Cazador right into his eye slit.
The bullet blew a hole clean through the Fey’s skull, but when it hit the enchanted armor on the other side, it must have fragmented into a million pieces because his head simply popped. Blood and sparks squirted out the visor. The wounded beast went snorting away, the dead rider flopping around on its back.
I was struck hard in the side of the head by something. I landed face first in the mud. Cazador went bouncing away.
Lying there, dazed, I waited for the killing blow. They could have speared me, or trampled me…I could feel the hooves striking the dirt only a few feet away, but they were waiting for something. Blood was running from my scalp into my eye. Groaning, I got to my hands and knees. Half a dozen Fey were riding around me in a circle. Laughing and taunting in their bizarre language as their beasts licked their sharp teeth and bayed for my blood. One of the warriors was swinging some knotted ropes in a circle so fast they made a whistling noise. They probably worked like bolos. The Hunt intended to capture me.
Screw that. I wasn’t getting skinned alive or spending eternity in some bird cage to amuse these jerkoffs.
I didn’t see where my rifle had landed. Instinctively, I reached for my belt, temporarily forgetting that I’d loaned my pistol to Lococo. Stupid. But then I saw
the mace the knight I had killed had dropped, and it was only a few feet away.
The Fey swung his arm, the ropes flew. I ducked, rolling, as the bolos bounced through the bushes. I snatched up the mace.
The weapon was really heavy, made out of the same dense black-green metal as their armor. It was nearly long as my arm, with a cluster of thick spikes on the end. It would be like swinging an iron baseball bat. I stood up, and with a roar, took a shot at the nearest passing horse beast.
The impact reverberated up my arm. The animal’s leg shattered. The beast screamed. The rider screamed as it reared back. I screamed as I smashed its back leg. Beast and rider went down. I got on top of them, and before he could do anything about it, I brought the mace down on top of his helmet. Green sparks flew, as magic absorbed much of the energy. I clubbed him hard again, and from the sickening crack that came from beneath the metal, I’d just split his skull.
The riders stopped circling.
Apparently fun time was over.
Panting and bleeding, I stepped away from the dead Fey. The horse thing was still thrashing about. There were a lot of spears pointed my way. This realm had made the Fey soft. They weren’t used to their prey showing this much stubborn resistance. I’d stung them, and for that, I was going to suffer…
Only my guys still needed more time. I was as good as dead, but I started shouting to be heard over the screaming of wounded horse things. “Come on, you pussies! I’ve only killed two of you for sure! I’ve still got a bunch left to go! Come on! I don’t got all day. You Fey are supposed to want a challenge, prove it!”
This time there wasn’t any bullshit about station. They accepted the challenge, because one of the knights dismounted and started walking confidently toward me. His helmet was shaped like a lion’s face, and his red eyes gleamed from between the lion’s teeth. The metal armor only made a whisper. The ones back at the fort had been babies compared to this monster. He was built like an NBA center and when he drew his sword, it hissed with green fire.